The impacts of the recent hurricane Ida in the United States, which killed more than 50 people and caused floods as far as in New York, was acknowledged by President Joe Biden as being more severe because of human-induced climate change. The same has been proven unequivocally by the science of attribution for having raised global mean temperature above one …
Young people can be saviours in dealing with climate change
In just the last few days, there have been two major reports from the United Nations on the status of global climate change and our efforts to tackle it. The first was on the science of climate change impacts by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) which, in its sixth assessment report, confirmed for the first time that …
Is a global goal on adaptation possible?
At the historic Paris Agreement on Climate Change made at the 21st Conference of Parties (COP21) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 2015, all the countries of the world agreed on a global goal on mitigation as well as setting a global goal on adaptation. The global goal on mitigation was relatively simple, as it …
Scientists warn G7 that cost of breaching 1.5˚C warming limit will far exceed costs of achieving it
A group of world-leading climate scientists are calling on global leaders to factor in the economic, environmental and humanitarian costs of failing to keep global warming below 1.5˚C this century, in a move led by experts from UCL, the University of Exeter and the ICCCAD. As the leaders of seven of the world’s wealthiest nations meet in Cornwall for the …
Can the G7 leaders rise to the occasion?
The leaders of the G7 countries—consisting of the US, UK, Canada, Japan, Italy, France and Germany—will be holding their annual meeting in the UK in the second week of June and have a number of major issues on their agenda, including how to roll out global vaccination against the coronavirus and how to tackle climate change. What do they need …
Introduction to The Circular Economy
There is today a wide scientific consensus on the existence of global warming, driven by the increased Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions (due to historic human activities) and concentration in the atmosphere. The latest IPCC 1.5°C Special report, released a couple of weeks ago in October 2018, made a clear statement that the world need to cut carbons emission as fast …
5 degrees of separation
Special report on 1.5c leaked A newly leaked draft from the International Panel on Climate Change — the “Special report on 1.5°C ” — highlights the difference between a rise of 1.5°C and 2°C of global warming above pre-industrial level. The leaked report meant for international climate policymakers is expected to be published later this year. The report emerges out …
Limiting global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees
In the run-up to the negotiations under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in its 21st Conference of Parties (COP21) in December 2015, one of the most politically contentious issues was whether the limit of the long-term global temperature rise should be kept at 2 degrees centigrade or changed to 1.5 degrees. Bangladesh, as part of the …
In the Final Hours of the Climate Talks, a 1.5 Degrees C Target Is Still on the Table—but Is That a Good Thing?
(Originally published here) In exchange for including the ambitious target in the final text, developing nations are being pressured to never again mention “loss and damage.” Entering the closing 48 hours of the global climate negotiations, US Secretary of State John Kerry said on Wednesday that “we will not leave the most vulnerable nations among us to quite literally …
Saleemul Huq: if climate talks were democratic, vulnerable countries ‘would have won already’
(Originally published here) With many “climate-vulnerable” nations calling on the Paris climate summit (COP21) to adopt a global warming limit of 1.5℃ rather than 2℃, will these concerns be acted upon? And if not, how much help will they get to cope with the consequences? Matt McDonald: Your research has examined developing countries in the context of climate change – …